oyuki

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Drone Debate

Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY] just concluded an
almost 13 hour long filibuster of the US Senate. This filibuster has
delayed the confirmation by the full Senate of Brennan to head the
CIA. The reason why Sen. Rand spoke, with able assistance for 13
hours, is very simple as he wants a simple answer to a very serious
question.

Sen. Paul wants to know if the Obama
administration, via the CIA that Brennan is nominated to head, is
willing to use drones to kill American citizens on American soil
without the due process of the law. Yes or no, that is all Sen. Paul
wanted to know.

The response he got from Attorney
General Eric Holder can be charitably called a 'maybe' answer. Two
strawmen were brought out by Holder in his answer – Pearl Harbor
and 9/11. There is a simple logical fault in using these two
examples, neither attack was carried out by American citizens.
Unlike Hassan Nidal at Ft. Hood or Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City.

In the case of Nidal and McVeigh,
regular means were used to apprehend the killers. A routine traffic
stop detained McVeigh long enough for them to connect the rental
truck VIN to him. Nidal was bodily tackled and stopped in his
killing spree.

So this administration wants a blank
check to determine if an American citizen is an imminent danger.
Without recourse to the American judicial system to rule if they have
enough evidence to make such a finding. And then to send a remote
control aircraft to kill that American citizen. Let me rephrase
that, this administration wants to have the ability to assassinate
American citizens on US soil without any oversight.

If you are not disturbed at that
thought, just contemplate the government getting bad intelligence and
sending out a drone on that information. Remember that wedding party
in Iraq that American aircraft bombed by accident? Now imagine that
happening on Main St in Peoria, IL – a drone fires a Hellfire
missile at someone's SUV. Its noon in Peoria. The Hellfire hits and
detonates, exploding the gas tank for good measure. Besides Betty
Sue and her twin girls getting murdered because of bad information,
how many people in the surrounding area just got killed or maimed
also.

Now do you think armed drones over the
US is such a good idea?

P.S. You may want to look up a movie
from the 1980s called 'Blue Thunder' with Roy Scheider. LAPD is
loaned a new helicopter. An armed helicopter that can also spy.
Scheider's character Murphy finds out the organization supplying Blue
Thunder has an ulterior motive of eliminating domestic threats. This
administration is trying to replace Blue Thunder with something
almost like a video game, just press the R1 on your X-Box
controller to fire a Hellfire missile to blow up the target and get
Achievement Points which is now a medal that can be worn between the
Silver Star and Bronze Star.